Skullcandy is known for its budget wireless earphones like the $20 Smokin' Buds, but it's going a bit more upmarket with a new line of products. Called Rail, it offers both ANC and non-ANC versions that cost less than $100 but have features typically found on more costly wireless earbuds.

The first model is the Rail ANC with adjustable 4-mic active noise cancellation, along with a "Stay-Aware" mode when out and about. It also has a "Smart Mic" option that reduces background noise so others can hear you better. You get up to 10 hours of battery life or seven with ANC on, along with an extra 25/20 hours (ANC off/on) when using the charging case. It's sweat, water and dust resistant, though the company didn't supply a specific IPX rating.

The Rail ANC is loaded with other intelligent features, some more useful-looking than others. Those include the ability to issue simple, hands-free voice commands (via its own device assistant) to turn on and adjust Stay-Aware mode, activate the device assistant, launch Spotify Tap and more. It's supposed to get smarter over time via new features released over-the-air on the Skull-iQ app. With Bluetooth 5.2, it comes with multipoint pairing, letting you pair to two devices at once, regardless of platform or manufacturer.

You can tune audio to your own hearing ability "by taking a real-time audio test to create a personal sound profile," the company said. On top of that, it comes with custom EQ modes and you can also customize the buttons via the Skull-iQ app. One nice feature is support for Tile's Finding tech, so if you misplace an earbud, you can "ring" it using the Tile app.

The Rail, meanwhile, has no ANC but a bit more battery life, with eight hours in the earbuds and 34 hours in the charging case. As for charging speeds, 10 minutes of charge equals two hours of playtime. Otherwise, the feature set is the same, and they look identical as well. With both models, the company is promising a "universally ergonomic fit," thanks to the use of VR and other "cutting-edge" design tools. The company didn't say much about sound quality in the PR, though.

The Rail (in True Black and Bone) and Rail ANC (in True Black) are now available exclusively on Skullcandy's website for $80 and $100 respectively.

If you never thought that Formula 1 and pro golf could go together, Netflix begs to differ. The streaming service is said to be in talks to livestream its first ever sporting event, a celebrity golf tournament featuring F1 drivers and professional golfers, according to The Wall Street Journal. It would reportedly feature personalities from Full Swing and Drive to Survive, Netflix documentaries that follow F1 drivers and pro golfers. Talks are still preliminary, according to the WSJ.

A celebrity golf event would be a low-stakes way for Netflix to work out a format and solve any technical issues that could occur in future live sports events. It famously messed up a livestream of its Love is Blind reality show, with technical problems causing an hour-long outage, though its first live stream event, a Chris Rock comedy special, went smoothly.

The company may have also noticed the popularity of golf YouTube channels like Rick Shiels and Bob Does Sports. Those often feature top-echelon pros like Max Homa playing rounds and competing with average players, trash talking and swearing like the rest of us do while playing golf. A similar format, with F1 drivers and players competing but also having fun, could draw in casual viewers that would otherwise never watch golf — much like Full Swing did. 

Netflix has supposedly been exploring live sports streaming for more than a year. It previously bid for live US streaming rights to Formula 1, but reportedly lost out to ESPN. It has also supposedly explored bidding on rights for tennis, cycling and other lower-profile sports. 

Earlier this year, co-CEO Ted Sarandos said "we aren't anti-sports, we're pro-profit," implying that Netflix doesn't think the costs for sports rights make economic sense. At the same time, he said the company was leaving the possibility open. Meanwhile, rivals like Amazon Prime Video have streamed live sports for years from leagues including the NFL, Major League Baseball, ATP, Premiere League and more. 

Meta's Audiocraft research team has just released MusicGen, an open source deep learning language model that can generate new music based on text prompts and even be aligned to an existing song, The Decoder reported. It's much like ChatGPT for audio, letting you describe the style of music you want, drop in an existing tune (optionally) and then clicking "Generate." After a good chunk of time (around 160 seconds in my case), it spits out a short piece of all-new music based on your text prompts and melody. 

The demo on Facebook's Hugging Face AI site lets you describe your music, providing a handful of examples like "an 80s driving pop song with heavy drums and synth pads in the background." You can then "condition" that on a given song up top 30 seconds long, with controls letting select a specific portion of that. Then, you just hit generate and it renders a high-quality sample up to 12 seconds long. 

The team used 20,000 hours of licensed music for training, including 10,000 high quality music tracks from an internal dataset, along with Shutterstock and Pond5 tracks. To make it faster, they used Meta's 32Khz EnCodec audio tokenizer to generate smaller chunks of music that can be processed in parallel. "Unlike existing methods like MusicLM, MusicGen doesn't not require a self-supervised semantic representation [and has] only 50 auto-regressive steps per second of audio," wrote Hugging Face ML Engineer Ahsen Khaliq in a tweet.

Last month, Google released a similar music generator called MusicLM, but MusicGen seems to generate slightly better results. On a sample page, the researchers compare MusicGen's output with MusicLM and two other models, Riffusion and Musai, to prove that point. It can be run locally (a GPU with at least 16GB of RAM is recommended) and available in four model sizes, from small (300 million parameters) to large (3.3 billion parameters) — with the latter having the greatest potential for producing complex music. 

As mentioned, MusicGen is open source and can even be used to generate commercial music (I tried it with "Ode to Joy" and several suggested genres and the results above were... mixed). Still, it's the latest example of the breathtaking speed of AI development over the past half year, with deep learning models threatening to make incursions into yet another genre. 

Microsoft Game Pass members will soon be able to stream PC games on NVIDIA's GeForce Now, following the announcement of a pact between the companies earlier this year. "This will enable the PC Game Pass catalog to be played on any device that GeForce Now streams to, like low spec PCs, Macs, Chromebooks, mobile devices, TVs, and more, and we’ll be rolling this out in the months ahead," Microsoft said in a blog post.

It doesn't appear to include the whole catalog, as GeForce Now members will be able to "stream select PC games" from the library, the company wrote. Still, it'll give PC Game Pass subscribers access to what we called "the enthusiast's choice for game streaming" thanks to the high performance offered by NVIDIA's latest RTX 4080 cards.

Previously, the companies announced that Microsoft Store would be coming to GeForce Now for purchases. In addition, Xbox games have already come to GeForce Now, starting with the arrival of Xbox exclusive Gears 5 last month. 

In February, Microsoft and NVIDIA struck a 10-year deal to bring games to the GeForce Now service, including Activision Blizzard titles like the Call of Duty series. Microsoft also signed an agreement with Spain-based cloud gaming provider Nware in April, and previously inked pacts with Nintendo, Steam, NVIDIA, Boosteroid, Ubitus and EE to make its games available on those companies' platforms. 

Many of those came about when Microsoft's potential acquisition of Activision Blizzard was being scrutinized by regulators in Europe, the US and elsewhere. Since then, however, UK regulators blocked the deal over cloud concerns, saying it would give Microsoft "incentive to withhold [Activision Blizzard] games from competitors and substantially weaken competition in this important growing market." With the news that it's offering its PC Game Pass subscription on GeForce Now, it may still think it can convince regulators to get on board. 

Spotify already lets you download songs, albums and playlists for offline listening, but you need to select each one manually so it's easy to forget your favorite music. Now, the company is testing a feature called "Your Offline Mix" that will "save a mix of your recently played songs for when the vibe is high, but your connection is low," Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said on Twitter.

The feature looks similar to YouTube's Offline Mixtape feature that came out back in 2019. As we wrote at the time, "Smart Downloads will pick some of your favorite songs and make sure they are available to you anywhere." Spotify's feature looks very similar, with the system downloading frequently listened-to songs and other content.

The feature is in testing and it's not clear yet when it will be available, but users in Ek's Twitter mentions said they've already seen it in their apps — with one noting that they hadn't downloaded 90 percent of the songs in their mix. Plus, the screenshot shows an offline mix over three-and-a-half hours long, so it can handle plenty of songs. That will make it quite useful for times when you're traveling or are in a remote location and need a little (or a lot) of entertainment.

Mercedes-Benz is the first automaker to get permission from California regulators to sell or lease vehicles with Level 3 (hands-off and eyes-off) self driving tech on designated roads, Reuters has reported. The California Department of Motor Vehicles issued a permit for the company's Drive Pilot system, provided it's used under certain conditions and on specific roads. Mercedes-Benz previous received a similar certification in Nevada. 

Drive Pilot will allow Mercedes-Benz drivers to takes their eyes off the road and hands off the wheel, then do other non-driving activities like watching videos and texting. If the rules for use are followed, Mercedes (and not the driver) will be legally responsible for any accident that happens. 

To do all this, the Drive Pilot system relies on sensors installed throughout the vehicle including visual cameras, LiDAR arrays, radar/ultrasound sensors and audio mics to keep an ear out for approaching emergency vehicles. It can even compare onboard sensor and GPS data to fix its precise location on roads. 

It's not as advanced as the systems on Waymo and Cruise vehicles, which allow full self-driving with no human driver aboard. At the same time, it's a step up from Tesla's so-called Full Self-Driving system, which is actually a Level 2 system and requires drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and pay attention at all times. 

Utilization is limited to high-traffic situations during daylight, with speeds under 40 MPH, and drivers must be available to resume control — so you can't go in the back seat and sleep, for example. To enforce that, the vehicle tracks the driver with an in-car monitor, and you'll need to take over if it goes faster than 40MPH, an emergency vehicle shows up, it rains, or other situations Driver Pilot can't handle on its own. 

The system will be available on 2024 S-Class and EQS Sedan models, with deliveries slated for later this year. Engadget was able to test the system at Mercedes-Benz's test track in Germany (and see it in action on LA roads). According to contributor Roberto Baldwin, "while it did what it was supposed to do, we found it hard to turn off our driving brain while behind the wheel."

Logitech is getting rid of the Blue microphone brand, and will now sell the products under the Logitech G gaming brand — only keeping the Blue name to "describe our technologies," it said. Blue has been removed from Logitech's "brands" section on its website, and the Bluemic.com domain now directs to Logitech. All Blue products, including the Yeti, Snowball and others, are now found only on the Logitech G section of its website. 

The company has also moved its Astro high-end gaming headsets, mixers and more over to Logitech G, but will keep that brand, The Verge reported. "The Astro brand will continue to live on as a premium console audio product series underneath the Logitech G brand. Stay tuned for more information regarding ASTRO including a launch that we think our community will be very excited about," the company said in a FAQ on Reddit. 

Logitech already hinted that it might scuttle the Blue brand, having released the Blue Sona streaming mic under Logitech G late last year. It also changed its description of the Yeti mic a while back, describing it as the Yeti microphone with Blue VO!CE technology. 

Logitech purchased Blue in 2018 for $117 million. However, Blue Microphones has a history beyond what you may expect, having originally created the "Bottle" microphone before ever developing any streaming products (Blue also stands for "Baltic Latvian Universal Electronics," according to Wikipedia). Its first microphone designed for streaming audio was the Snowball, still available on Logitech as the Snowball Ice for $50. 

Given that the Blue brand is highly respected in podcasting, streaming and other areas, it seems an odd choice to kill it off in favor of its own brand, which has far less cachet. The company is promising a "deeper integration" with all its Logitech G products, promising that you'll be able to configure them "all in one place," presumably its G HUB app. If that's the plan, then Logitech may need to address criticism with that app, if the comments on its Reddit FAQ post are anything to go by. 

Dads love cameras, both as a way to capture special moments and just as fun gadgets. If your father wants to go beyond their smartphone, a new camera would certainly be a welcomed gift. The question is, what type does he need and how much should you spend? We found some of the best models with the latest tech, like fast shooting speeds, sharp video and incredible autofocus. Better still, they cover a wide range of prices, and we’ve also recommended some accessories to complement the gear your dear father already owns.

GoPro Hero 11 Black

GoPro didn’t change the design on its latest model, but it has a larger sensor that enables a couple of cool features – Horizon Lock stabilization and Full Frame mode that makes it easier to shoot for, say, TikTok and YouTube at the same time. Otherwise, the Hero 11 Black offers better video quality than ever (up to 5.3K 60p), Hypersmooth stabilization that’s still the best in the business (by far), battery life that’s improved by 40 percent over the last model, and more. The best action product on the market is not the cheapest – but if your dad is serious about filming his exploits, it’s well worth it.

Canon EOS M50 II and EOS R100

Canon’s EOS M50 II is three years old, but with current deals, it’s the best value camera you can give your dad right now. It offers features like a 24.2-megapixel sensor, flip-out screen, tap-to-record and focus, plus 4K video with a 1.5x crop. Its light weight makes it a great travel camera, with the flip-out display allowing your father to shoot selfies or do some vlogging. If you want to pay less and your dad can wait an extra month, though, Canon just released the 24.2-megapixel R100. It has most of the features of the M50 II, but lacks a flip-out display. It’s priced at just $480 for the body only, or $600 with a 16-50mm lens, which makes it the cheapest mirrorless camera on the market. You can pre-order it now, but shipping is set for July.

Canon EOS R50

Still in the budget category but stepping up a notch is Canon’s 24-megapixel APS-C R50, which will suit your dad whether he does photography or video. It can shoot bursts at up to 15 fps in electronic shutter mode, and offers 4K 10-bit video at up to 30p with supersampling and no crop. It has a fully articulating display, and unlike other cameras in this price range, an electronic viewfinder. It uses Canon’s Dual Pixel AF with subject recognition mode, and even has a popup flash. The only drawback is the lack of in-body stabilization, but the electronic stabilization is very effective with the price of a slight crop.

Sony Alpha ZV-E10

If your father is a content creator, Sony’s 24.2-megapixel ZV-E10 APS-C camera is a strong budget option. It can shoot sharp, downsampled 4K video at up to 30 fps with a 1.23x crop (or 1080p at 120 fps) and uses Sony’s fantastic AI-powered autofocus system with face and eye detection. It also has a few creator-specific features like Product Showcase and a bokeh switch that makes the background as blurry as possible so your subject stands out. Another nice feature is the high-quality microphone that lets you vlog without the need to buy an external mic. The main drawbacks are the lack of an EVF and rolling shutter.

Nikon Z5

Nothing will enhance your father’s photos like the sweet bokeh of a full-frame camera, and the 24-megapixel Nikon Z5 is a stellar deal right now. It’s mostly aimed at photographers, with features like hybrid phase-detect autofocus and Nikon’s excellent color science. And for such a budget option, it has desirable features like five-axis in-body stabilization, dual fast UHS-II card slots, a 3.69 million dot OLED electronic viewfinder and a tilting touch display. Video isn’t a strong point, but it can handle 4K 30p with a crop and 1080p at 60fps.

Canon EOS R8

Moving up in price, Canon’s EOS R8 is a better-rounded option if your dad likes shooting video as much as taking photos. It has the company’s excellent Dual Pixel AF with subject recognition AI, and can shoot bursts at up to 40 fps. It's equally strong with video, supporting oversampled 10-bit 4K at up to 60 fps. The R8 also offers a flip-out display, making it great for vloggers. The main drawback is a lack of in-body stabilization.

Panasonic Lumix S5 II and S5 IIX

For dads who take their content creation very seriously, check out Panasonic’s full-frame S5 II. It’s the company’s first camera with hybrid phase-detect AF designed to make focus "wobble" and other issues a thing of the past. He can shoot sharp 4K 30p video downsampled from the full sensor width, or 4K 60p from an APS-C cropped size, all in 10-bit color. It even offers 5.9K 30p capture, along with RAW 5.9K external output to an Atomos recorder. It also has a flip-out screen for vlogging and updated five-axis in-body stabilization that’s the best in the industry. The main drawback is the slowish burst speeds, but it’s made for video more than photography. If you don’t mind spending an extra $200, the S5 IIX lets you record in the Apple ProRes format directly to an SSD, or in RAW modes (Apple or Blackmagic) via the external HDMI port.

Peak Design Everyday Messenger

With its rugged, practical design, Peak Design’s Everyday Messenger Bag is an ideal gift for adventurous or photo-shooting dads. It’s built with a lightweight yet durable 100-percent waterproof recycled 400D shell with the ingenious Flexfold dividers in the main storage area. It also offers a pair of zipped pockets, two elastic side pockets and a compartment big enough for a 13- to 15-inch laptop. I own one myself and find it practical both for work and daily activities, letting me fit a camera, lens and laptop along with my wallet and keys. At $230, it’s not the cheapest bag out there, but your dad won’t have to buy another for a good while.

Magnus VT-4000 tripod

For dads serious about video, the Magnus VT 4000 is the best budget tripod option. It’s stout enough to handle a mirrorless camera and accessories weighing up to 8.8 pounds, more than the eight-pound weight of the tripod itself. That lack of heft makes it practical for travel, while the fluid head helps you tilt and pan smoothly. Other features include a middle spreader to keep things steady and legs that extend up to 64 inches so you can match the eyeline of your subjects. All of these features come for $199, a relative steal considering the quality.

Joby GorillaPod 3K mini tripod

The most useful accessories out there for vlogging dads are Joby’s famous mini-tripods, and the best one for the money is the GorillaPod 3K. Attaching your camera couldn’t be easier thanks to the secure clip-in mounting plate with a built-in level. The flexibility also lets you set your camera anywhere to shoot, or even wrap it around a tree or other object. And, of course, you can bend them out for the ideal vlogging angle and steady out your shooting, to boot.

Lexar V60/V90 UHS-II SD cards

Camera-loving dads can never get enough memory cards, but they can be a pretty pricey gift. One of the best budget options is Lexar’s V60 UHS-II SD cards, which offer a good balance between speed and value. The 120MB/s write speeds are enough for most H.264/H.265 4K video modes, and you can then transfer files to your computer at up to 250MB/s. If that’s not fast enough, Lexar’s new 1800X V60 II cards offer 270/170MB/s read/write speeds at good prices, and for the best performance, check out their V90 UHS-II cards, which deliver read/write speeds of 300/260MB/s.

Google Meet, the company's answer to Zoom and Microsoft Teams, just got an update that makes the picture-in-picture (PiP) feature far more useful. Specifically, a new set of controls makes it easier to multitask during a meeting while remaining present and participating in video conferences, according to Google's Workspace Update blog post.

With the picture-in-picture window open, there's now a control that lets you "raise your hand," use PiP while in meeting chat, turn captions on and off, resize the picture-in-picture view more effectively and access flexible layouts, the company said. Google shows exactly how it works in the GIF below, as a user drafts an email while still being able to see his colleagues and remain present in the video chat. Should you need to make a point, you can still raise your hand and access other controls. 

Google

That's a big change from the last version, which offered limited resizing options and a fixed aspect ratio. In addition, the previous controls only let you leave the meeting or turn the camera/microphone on and off. While a relatively small change, it makes the app far more useful from a productivity standpoint (or lets you play the Eggman Game without being noticed). 

The update is now available for Google Meet on Chrome browser, and will be rolling out more widely over the next few weeks. Google has full instructions on how to use the new features here. 

WhatsApp has launched a new feature called Channels that makes it much more like a social media app, the Meta-owned company announced. It allows accounts to send one-way broadcasts to followers in the form of "text, photos, videos, stickers and polls," much as you can with an app like Twitter. Broadcasting accounts can decide who's allowed to follow their channel, whether they want it to be discoverable and more. At the same time, "following a channel won’t reveal your phone number to the admin or other followers," WhatsApp said.

Users can find channels in a new tab on the app called Updates. That area shows Status and channels you decide to follow, separate from chats with family, friends and group chats/communities. For creators who plan to use the feature, WhatsApp will eventually add payment services to monetize it.

Privacy is also key, the company said. A channel's admin info isn't shared and it only retains 30 days of history. Admins can also prevent followers from taking screenshots or forwarding messages. Channels aren't end-to-end encrypted, but WhatsApp said it's exploring the idea for non-profits, health organizations or other privacy-sensitive organizations.

Channels is more or less a copy of a similar feature on rival chat app Telegram of the same name. Earlier this year, Meta launched Broadcast Channels on Instagram, allowing creators to stream updates to their followers’ inboxes much as WhatsApp users will be able to do. The feature can be likened to a newsletter, and in fact, it may have been called Newsletter while still under development (or the latter could arrive later as a separate feature).

WhatsApp is evolving well beyond it's original purpose as a simple messaging app. Meta recently added the ability to use one account on multiple devices, something that was not only impossible before, but potentially created a hassle when you changed phones. The company has also updated group chats, while adding polls, shopping and more.

The new feature is not launching widely, but starting with "leading global organizations and select organizations in Columbia and Singapore," the company said. It'll arrive to more countries and users down the road "in the coming months."